The Melody Girls

CATHERINE
'
S LAND

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First world edition published 2010

in Great Britain and in the USA by

SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

9–15 High Street, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM1 1DF.

Copyright © 2010 by Anne Douglas.

All rights reserved.

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Douglas, Anne, 1930-

The Melody Girls.

1. Dance orchestras–Scotland–Glasgow–Fiction.

2. Women musicians–Fiction. 3. Glasgow (Scotland)–

Social conditions–20th century–Fiction. 4. Love stories.

I. Title

823.9'14-dc22

ISBN-13: 978-1-7801-0180-4 (ePub)

ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-6936-4 (cased)

ISBN-13: 978-1-84751-273-4 (trade paper)

Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

This ebook produced by

Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland.

One

Edinburgh's West End post office clock was going slow. Or so thought Lorna Fernie, counter clerk, covertly glancing up at the hands in between serving customers. If the clock wasn't going slow, why was the afternoon so long? Sometimes it seemed as though leaving time would never be reached and she'd never make it to the Merchant Hall for the talent contest, which was foolish even to imagine. But then she was a wee bit nervous, wasn't she? Unusually for her.

A slim, quite small girl, not yet twenty-one, Lorna's eyes were blue and very bright beneath dark level brows that contrasted well with her auburn hair. Auburn, not to say ginger, though Lorna didn't mind if folk called it that. After all, her dad had been ginger until his later years when, of course, his hair had faded, but he'd still been called Coppers by his colleagues in the dance band where he played saxophone. The same saxophone now owned by Lorna.

On that late November afternoon, even with the Christmas rush still some way off, folk were queuing patiently in the post office. But then, in 1945, they were used to queuing. Fact of life, eh? Same as shortages and rationing. Bomb damage, too, though it had to be admitted, Edinburgh had got off pretty lightly with that. Still had some protective sticky paper on the post office windows, though – just another reminder of the war, if you needed it.

Stamps, postal orders, packages, parcels, on and on went the flow, as the clerks worked away through the afternoon, but a lull came eventually when Pattie MacDowell, next to Lorna, was able to ask in a stage whisper, ‘You nervous about tonight, Lorna?'

‘A bit,' Lorna answered after a pause.

‘You're used to playing, though? At concerts and that?'

Yes, it was true, Lorna reflected. She was used to playing – mainly the piano – at local concerts, kirk socials, and so on, but tonight's event was different. A talent contest in aid of charity. A competition where she'd be judged. She wasn't used to that.

‘I've never been in a talent contest before,' she said at last. ‘And it's important, you see. There's a prize.'

‘Aye, ten pounds, I heard.' Pattie, a plump little blonde, was excited. ‘That's a lot, eh?'

‘I'm more interested in something else. If you win, you get to play on the wireless.'

‘The wireless! Where?'

‘Here, in Edinburgh. At the studios in Queen Street.' Lorna's eyes suddenly shone. ‘Imagine it, broadcasting!'

‘And that'll be you, Lorna. I bet you win tonight. You're a lovely pianist.'

‘Tonight, I'm playing the saxophone,' said Lorna.

The hands of the clock moved round at last to show the half hour after five. Going home time, thank the Lord, and as Miss Dickinson, the supervisor, closed the doors to the public, the staff yawned and stretched, buttoned up their coats and began to call out their ‘goodnights'.

Lorna, of course, was wasting no time. This was what she'd been waiting for: to finish work, skid along home, have her tea – not that she'd want it – and get ready for the contest. Her mother would be coming with her, and her Auntie Cissie, over from Musselburgh, and probably Ewen MacKee, a senior postal clerk who worked in the back office after being demobbed from the navy.

‘Hey, Lorna, wait for me!' He was calling to her now, as she raced out into the chill of the evening. ‘You know I'm going your way.'

‘Hurry up, then. I want to do some practising when I get home.'

‘You don't need to do any practising,' he told her, grinning, as they set off together through the lighted, crowded streets of the West End, he suiting his long-legged stride to her quick little steps. ‘You know all your piano pieces backwards, eh?'

‘I'm playing the saxophone, Ewen.'

‘The saxophone? Whatever for? I mean – I know you're good, but . . .'

She laughed a little at the expression on his broad, good-natured face, as he took off his cap and put his hand through his thick brown hair.

‘But girls don't play the saxophone? They do, then. They can play any instrument going, don't have to stick to the piano or violin.'

‘Yes, but for something like the contest, I thought sure you'd play those good tunes you know so well. I bet that's what the judges would like.'

‘Who knows what they'd like? And I can play tunes on the saxophone, anyway. If you come tonight, you'll hear 'em, eh?'

‘I'm coming tonight, all right. Just try to keep me away!'

They parted at the end of West Maitland Street, from where Ewen continued into the Dalry area and Lorna ran fast to a shabby old house off the Haymarket. Here she had lived all her life in the ground-floor flat of the converted building, the only child of her parents after two brothers had died in infancy. It was not a sadness Lorna herself had experienced, being too young at the time. In fact, she had known no sadness at all until the death of her father the year before, a grief that was still with her. How did you get over losing somebody who'd meant so much? ‘You just take it day by day,' Tilly her mother had told her. ‘And keep busy.'

Well, they were busy enough. They had their living to make, Tilly as a dressmaker, Lorna, after her war work making munitions, in the post office, For now, as she told herself, but not for ever.

There were four rooms in their flat. Two bedrooms, a kitchen and a living room, which was furnished like most of the living rooms Lorna knew, except, along with the stuffed sofa, the loaded sideboard, the table and chairs, there was a piano. Very old, with walnut casing and yellowed keys, even a pair of candleholders, but it was Lorna's pride and joy, and all thanks to Auntie Cissie, her mother's sister, who'd let them have it years before. It had belonged to her late husband's mother, given to Cissie for her children, but they'd never wanted to play and had now left Edinburgh.

‘Who else would I give it to, but Lorna?' Cissie had asked reasonably. ‘With her dad being a musician and all?'

‘Always meant to get one,' Cam Fernie had said, thumbing through the old music that had arrived with the piano. ‘Never got round to it.'

‘Always needed something else first,' Tilly had put in.

‘And that's where we made our mistake, eh? This should have come first.'

‘You had your fiddle and your sax.'

‘But we should've thought of Lorna.'

As her father sat down and ran his fingers over the keys, muttering that he'd have to tune the instrument before he did anything else, Lorna could remember standing looking on, transfixed with happiness.

‘Am I going to learn to play, Dad?' she'd whispered.

Of course, she'd learned to play. As Lorna bounded into the living room now, calling to her mother that she was home, the memory of all those lessons came back. Not just for the piano, but the saxophone and violin as well, with her father patiently teaching her so thoroughly she'd never needed anyone else.

Oh, but it was hard to think he wasn't still there in his chair, smoking and smiling as she came in from school! But she wasn't coming in from school today, and it was Auntie Cissie sitting in his chair now. She was waiting to go with her and Ma to the talent contest that was looming ever nearer.

‘Hi, Ma!' Lorna cried, flinging back her auburn hair. ‘Hi, Auntie Cissie! All set for tonight?'

Two

It had always seemed to Lorna that her mother and her aunt were more like twins than ordinary sisters, even though there were three years between them, Cissie now being forty-eight and Tilly forty-five. Both were fair, though, and had such similar faces – long and pale, with high cheekbones and blue eyes much lighter than Lorna's – you could be forgiven for confusing them. Unless you knew them as well as Lorna did, for in character they were quite different.

Tilly was steady, never making a move until she was sure, while Cissie was bold and, as she sometimes said with a laugh, ready to jump in with both feet. ‘Might get wet sometimes,' she would add, ‘but never drowned, eh?'

‘Here she is!' she cried now, when Lorna came to give her a hug. ‘Here's the winner!'

‘Och, now don't be saying that,' Tilly said reproachfully. ‘Nothing's for sure in this world.'

‘When the judges hear Lorna playing that lovely “Minute Waltz” thing she played at the kirk concert, there'll be no contest,' Cissie retorted. ‘She'll knock 'em for six.'

‘I won't be playing the “Minute Waltz”,' Lorna said firmly. ‘That's a piano piece.'

‘So? I thought you were playing the piano?'

‘I've decided to play the saxophone.'

There was a silence as the two sisters exchanged glances.

‘The saxophone,' Tilly said at last. ‘I don't believe it. Whatever's got into you, Lorna, to think of doing that?'

‘Aye, what indeed?' Cissie asked. ‘The saxophone's a terrible solo instrument, so it is. Why, you'll need somebody to play with you, eh?'

‘No, I won't, I'm playing on my own. My sax sounds beautiful.' Lorna frowned deeply. ‘And it was my dad's instrument, don't forget.'

‘But yours is the piano,' Tilly declared. ‘And he only played the sax in Jackie Craik's band.'

‘I could've played it in a band!'

‘But you know he always said you couldn't. I can see him now, sitting in that chair and saying Jackie and the fellows would never accept a lassie. Don't tell me you've forgotten, Lorna!'